[First half of March 1911. Paris.]1

Dear Vlasov! You are proposing something quite strange! One cannot send such a telegram; we cannot assume this risk. Send it from Leipzig yourself if you want to take the risk, which we do not advise.

Is it possible that the matter is being held up because of money? Could they not have borrowed for a ticket to Berlin??

Clearly, it is not money that is causing the delay.

A Bundist — a scoundrel and liquidator (Lieber) — is chattering here that he knows about some kind of stalling and some trip to the Caucasus (!!?).2

More news: both Kostrov and Petr are at liberty. Both call themselves Plekhanovists.

We know for certain from the plenum that both are liquidators.

You made a tremendous mistake in not obtaining authority from the samovars, and now you are making it worse by not sending anyone to the samovars. But see what is happening! Time is passing (the Pravdists are already choosing people in Moscow for the conference — a split is imminent).3 You are losing patience. It's all a farce.

It is clear that what needed to be done was what we demanded: immediately send a person to the samovars. Do this at once, otherwise we get absurdity.

After everything that has happened, and after your accounts, we too cannot trust the samovars and wait, wait for months and months. These delays will force us to break everything off, declare to the Germans that there is no Central Committee and demand money immediately.

Nothing else remains, and your passivity ("perhaps the samovar will get moving") is to blame for it all.

SHAKING YOUR HAND

Lenin.

1 Dating: from the content of the letter it is evident that it was sent following the letter of 10 March 1911.

2 From Tyshka's letter to Lenin and Zinoviev of 20 March 1911 it is clear that Nogin's proposal to transfer the meeting of the CC of "Russian composition" abroad (made by him at the end of February or beginning of March 1911 under the influence of the persistent demands of the foreign center of the Bolsheviks) met with protest from Lindov and Yudin; Yudin after some time